Ms. Shinke writes "fortuitous occurrences" on the board in marker, underlines it twice, and then circles it until the dry-erase marker screams out for mercy.

I didn't realize how much I was looking forwards to the bi-monthly Extra-related lesson until it came around and I had something to do besides thinking about the awesome bonfire my math papers would make later that day. Fox brain and Derrick brain are usually in agreement that school is irrelevant and that my future is screwed no matter what I do, but Derrick brain is actually interested in learning about the material today which means fox brain is going to be an impediment.

"As you know..." The classroom is far too loud to make anything out. "As you know..." Ms. Shinke clears her throat for attention and the noise in the classroom rises by at least five decibels. Alya, who is there, for once, is practically leaning out of her seat into the aisle, eagerly speaking with Maris. I can half make out their conversation, but unfortunately Sarah is still talking, and that drowns out just about everything. Ms. Shinke lifts a small, silver bottle full of something that is definitely not water to her mouth and takes a hefty swig. I have no idea how she's managed to evade the authorities on that one, but I also think she might kill us if we tried to turn her in. Slapping the board with her pole, Ms. Shinke announces, "As you know, some places and people are more prone to Extradom than others. Can anyone give some examples of unusual places with a high Extra concentration?"

"Oh! Erratic geographic formations, large numbers of liminal spaces, anywhere with weird scents in the air, especially those that trigger nostalgic memories... areas surrounded by large expanses of uninhabited land?"

"All of those would be correct, Najma. Thank you for returning to our classroom."

"Damn right!" Alya crows.

Ms. Shinke says bitterly, "Please don't swear in my classroom. Aside from a demonstrable lack of respect for authority and a higher tendency for erratic behavior than the general population, can anyone else name some various behaviors that mistakenly or otherwise, have commonly been associated with Extradom?"

"Doing favors for strangers. You do something nice and whoops, I guess it was a witch." Alya announces, proudly. "Personally, I was beamed up in my sleep, but--"

"Anyone else?" asks Ms. Shinke, pole in hand.

"Ability to commune with animals." Olive says, busting out of her chair. I think of deer and my face scrunches up. Yeah, if I never see any animals I can "commune" with again it will be too soon. Can't wait to get a driver's license so I can make some roadkill.

"Propensity for reading?" Mikayla suggests.

"That's a rumor." Arthur says. "Books are safe."

"Babies like you." Hoshi says. "I think."

"That is the most ineloquent way I've ever heard that put, but yes, Extras are known to attract the attention of small children and babies." Ms. Shinke says.

"Resistance to death." offers Endina.

My hair stands on end. "Oh yeah, because we live so long."

"Some people are only meant to die one way--" Arthur begins, and I have my hand on my table, the nails curling so that they touch the edges.

"Meant to?" I say, voice low and sharp. "Meant to."

"It's just destiny." Arthur says. "Has its way with everyone."

"Mr. Renard, if you don't want to participate in this conversation, we can make other accommodations for you in the counselling office." warns Ms. Shinke.

My entire face is curled into a near inhuman expression, my extended canines bared into an ugly snarl. I feel adrenaline running like water through my veins, edging me forwards, and I drop back into my seat, putting a hand to my face. I can't see them, they can't see me, no one has to get hurt. "I'm fine."

"Hey, if we're going to talk about unusual activity, what's going on with the liminal spaces?" asks Alya. (It almost passes for an accidental inclusion.)

Ms. Shinke's face drops. "I'm afraid I'm not at leisure to part with that information."

"Oh. Makes sense. People are dying, you can't explain anything to us. It's not as if we'd want to be involved in this." Maris stands. I see the smallest trace of lightning wreath around her arm, working its way up towards her neck and raven-black hair. She's wearing a sleeveless top (come on, Maris, it's like sixty outside) and every hair on her arms stands up. I look down to her gripped fists, back to Ms. Shinke, and the whole classroom holds its breath in unison.

"You're not going to threaten me into revealing information, nor would it be wise of you to attempt to electrocute me. I should warn you I have far more training than you and we've been specifically prepared for any contingency stemming from any one of you." Ms. Shinke warns, frowning down at Maris.

Maris unclenches her fists. "You're right." She swings towards Mikayla, lightning sparking at her fingers. Mikayla's eyes flicker with the lightning now forming at Maris's fingers, sparking around her in a wide arc. "Feeling a little more generous with that information now?"

The world accelerates around us.

"Oh globeks, we're so dead," Alya says, thrilled.

"What kind of profanity is globeks," cries Mikayla, attempting to shield herself with her bag.

"Space profanity!" yells Alya.

"We are under attack by one of our own right now," Brittany screams at Ms. Shinke, "Holy hell, do something."

Ms. Shinke raises her phone to the office, mutters something about a code Seven, and Arthur springs out of his own seat and stands atop it, almost brushing the ceiling with his idea, perfectly combed golden hair. Holding his hands out as if to calm a wild animal, he announces, "No one knows. No one knows anything. This hasn't happened before. Ever. Now can everyone sit down?"

Maris raises her finger with a sigh. Mikayla lowers her backpack, hesitantly, the two of them fixing each other with equally desperate stares, and Ms. Shinke grabs Maris by the arm. Maris bolts in alarm, and though Ms. Shinke's hair rises, she remains unharmed by the sudden discharge. With a distasteful scowl, she says, "I expected better from all of you." Looking around the room, she says, "Try anything and the ambassadors will be on you-- as well as the federal government. This room is videotaped." warns Ms. Shinke. "We will return momentarily."

Mikayla makes a subtle gesture to Maris on her way out. Maris's pale eyes squint faking a smile, and I see tears leak out of the sides. Her whole body shakes with fear as she is escorted out.

"No. Noooo. You didn't--" I yells, and Mikayla slams her mouth against mine.

My ensuing scream is muffled as I tear myself away from her, fox instinct reacting as if I've just been pushed underwater, which is true, in a metaphorical sense. I gasp for air, glaring at her, and my hand darts out across her face and just hits her hair. She raises an eyebrow at me, then, as the classroom breaks into even more noise, she calmly pushes her phone towards me through the panic. "I've been meaning to show you this for a long time, Derrick. I write really cheesy poetry about you." She looks at me with the dead, emotionless expression I've come to know and love over the past few weeks. One sentence is written on the app, and it's not cheesy poetry (what a disappointment):

Stay out of our way.

"I love you too," I say, and type back a few words: I want to help. Also you should probably know you totally fucked Maris and her already bad situation over, so, if this was your idea, guess what, it sucked. Yours, lovingly, never do that again. "There you go. That's my phone number. Now you can share your... poetry with me whenever you want, and I can stare at it, longingly, way into the night." I think I'm stuck between wanting to give her a pat on the back and strangling her right now. My lips are numb, my body is rigid with fox adrenaline, and I'm trying to wipe my tongue on my canines to get the taste of her out, like seasoning and fall leaves and... no! How about no. Not today. I glare at her to let her know this isn't over and she gives me the eye contact version of a middle finger. Wiping my face off with my arm, I stand, and she, too, rises from her desk.

"You're being honest." she says to Arthur.

Arthur puts his hand to his forehead. "You can't be kidding me. Of course I was being honest. You almost got shot in the head."

"I can't believe Maris almost did that," whimpers Olive. "She seems so nice."

"First rule of Classroom 63--" Arthur begins.

"Looks can be deceiving?" offers Alya, who is also making complicated female eye maneuvers with Mikayla and texting at the same time.

"No. Everyone here is a powder keg. Do all of you understand that we're never going to get out of here if we don't sit down and do what they ask us to do? Because we won't, and I, for one, had a life and friends before this, and I plan to have a life and friends afterwards. If you ever want to be normal again, drop whatever grudge you have and please collaborate. I'm not asking this as a representative. I'm asking this as a friend. Okay?"

Wow, there was almost legitimate emotion there.

"You don't know that things are ever going to get better," Mikayla says.

"What else am I supposed to do?" asks Arthur.

The bell rings for lunch.

"I'll call the main office about special protocol. I don't want to eat in here. It smells like Ms. Shinke." Brittany picks up the honest-to-god-attached-to-the-wall-like-we're-in-the-eighties phone and the noise in the room pitches itself off a bridge, even though all we've really done is put ourselves under double surveillance as opposed to single surveillance. Standing here, unspeaking, I realize that all of us look way, way smaller than we did a few minutes ago, save for maybe Finn. We're too young to attempt anything, and I'm still reeling from fucking Mikayla, and apparently fox brain and Derrick brain are in agreement that now would be the best time to take a backflip off the "doing okay" cliff into the panic hole. I put my hand to my head again as the throbbing anxiety headache takes me, the only sound to cross the room in minutes save for Brittany trying to deal with the incompetent administration, and Brittany "shhs" me like an elementary school teacher. When she finally gets off, she says, "They're sending someone."

Most of the class is back on their phones. Finn grumbles, "All of you are idiots."

"You have one life," Mikayla sighs, "We blew it already, so we might as well make the best of whatever's left."

"Making it worse for other people by inciting anarchy is not a real solution." Arthur says, incensed.

"I've always been a fan of anarchy, personally." Castelia says. "I mean, if you think about it, most alternative forms of government have never really been--"

To the widespread relief of everyone in the room, Asiya Reema busts down the door clutching her hijab and bearing pepper spray. "Hall," she demands, and the class files out like we're on a field trip, albeit a very somber field trip where everyone is on the verge of a panic attack, in a panic attack, or glaring at each other. When we've made it into the deserted hallway and we're all up against the other wall, she kicks the door closed with the toe of her boot and exclaims, "What were you thinking?"

"Great question," whispers Brittany. "What was Maris, working alone, of her own accord, thinking?"

"Could she be expelled?" asks Mikayla, earnestly.

"No," Asiya says. "However, her parents might vouch to pull her out of the program if she becomes violent, due to the Gerald Laws."

"Yeah that might be worse." Mikayla says, lowering her voice.

"If you were in any way complicit in any of this, I'm going to warn you now that you could have stood to thought of that earlier," Asiya says. "And I'm going to need to take all of you into counselling over the next few weeks."

"That's not that bad," Owen says. "Your office is nice, and there are lollipops..."
"Don't make this an incentive, I'm sure we can come up with something much worse." warns Asiya. "All of you. Lunch."

I walks on the opposite side of the hallway from Mikayla, my face burning with the bitter blaze of betrayal, which I can't wipe off no matter how hard I try. I was saving those lips for a corpse. No wait. That's disgusting. Shit. Was I really planning to never kiss a girl again? I think so, but that also sounds... here we go again. Welcome back to the Sympathy for Derrick Renard channel. It's like the Hotel California: you turn it on whenever you want, but you can't get out of that shit. You're stuck there forever, listening to me sob like I've been kicked in the balls and watching the shitty technicolor headlines pass by.

Mikayla stares me down and I flip my lapels at her, savoring the crease of my coat and the way it tosses my hair, which is the one part of my body I can stand. I sit down right in the middle of the table, next to Arthur, who is messing with a metal fork he brought from home (why are you such a snob?). The others talk around them, conversations arcing lightning earlier in the day, but no one says a word about it. No one even says a word about Extradom in general. This sucks, because most of us have no interests besides ourselves (oh yeah, we totally forgot to bring up narcissism during the lesson), so it's mainly Olive talking about some back of the internet site no one should admit they were on in public and Alya listing off the names of planetoids and stars that have been discovered during her "internship" at NASA.

Arthur sighs, looking dejected at a sandwich that looks even more fake perfect than he does.

"So. Is it your granddad in the Extra videos? You know, the cheesy ones. From middle school." I ask.

Arthur raises an eyebrow. "Does this really matter, Derrick?"
"Absolutely." I say, and then I steeple my hands. "That said. You didn't show a few nights ago."

"Is that where you planned this?" he asks below his breath. "Look. I could get all of you turned in and I haven't said a word. Don't think for a second the legal system isn't obscenely biased against us. If you want to make it through high school, then you need to leave well enough alone."

"And the case?" I ask.

"Who gives a fuck? My family's on it. Leave well enough alone. You're not even involved in this."

He's right. I'm not involved in this. I'm putting my nose in someone else's business because I'm bored. I put a hand on his shoulder, assertively. "Hey, I hate to be that guy, but let me be that guy for a second."

Arthur places down the sandwich and glares warningly towards Ms. Reema.

"At some point, you have to choose what matters to you." I stand up a little taller. Alpha wolf, Derrick. Alpha wolf. Err, fox. (This is a bad time to be mentally debating this.) "That's now."

"Done." Arthur says.

"Alright then," I say, even if we need fighters and he has inside information and... honestly, this is making my head hurt. I raise my hand and stand with the bell. "Sorry for interrogating you. Just thought I'd..."

He glares at me again.

"Seriously. Sorry."

"Whatever, Derrick." he walks off with Brittany's hand in his, and she looks back at me, her piercings jingling.

Mikayla approaches just as quickly. Threateningly close to my ear, she mutters, "Saw you talking to Arthur."

"By saw you, she means she was watching you the whole time." Finn calls from a foot under us.

"The alternative was listening to Sarah ramble about..." Mikayla trails off, making a complicated gesture with her hands.

"Sarah," suggests Finn.

"The primary thread through all of her stories would be that they come back to her most of the time, wouldn't they?" Mikayla grins wickedly.

"I tune all of you out and pretend I'm working an office job." Finn admits.

"That's so... look. That is not what I came over here to talk to you about." Mikayla says. "Can I get your actual phone number?"
"No," I laugh. "Absolutely not."

"Come on," Mikayla says. "Look. I didn't want to kiss you either but I really can't screw this up for Maris more than I already did."

"It was your idea, wasn't it?" I say.

Mikayla flashes me a dead glare.

"People saw me kiss you. We're not a couple. We don't even like each other. We are not giving anyone rumor fuel."
"Did they say anything about it?" Mikayla says, with a tentative shrug. When I fix the light fixtures with a dead stare, placing my hands in my pockets, she asks, "Is that what you're really worried about, Derrick?"

For once, I'm the one who gets to walk away in steely, overblown dramatic silence, and it is cathartic as hell.

(A/N: Down to one chapter on my queue. Help me.)